Automated Stem Cell Prep

This piece has an old idea in a new “package.” The old idea is that of the hanging drop of tissue culture, which Ross Granville Harrison and Alexis Carrel pioneered before the First World War. The new package is an innovation from three of Germany’s Fraunhofer Instituteswhich allows hanging drops of stem cell cultures to be automated. As the piece says: “The separation of the liquid into individual droplets that hang from the ceiling of the box is possible thanks to a hydrophobic coating covering most of the surface of the ceiling while the spots where the droplets are to sit have a highly hydrophilic coating.” MORE